Ultimate Tivo Unit - When? Thoughts please.

On 2008-02-06, Neill Massello wrote:
Ted Zlatanov wrote:

That's not theft, though it does possibly infringe copyrights.

Correct, but not really relevant to Bill's main point that what Art does
-- "sharing" programming without even moving it out of the digital
domain -- is precisely what content providers have been trying to
prevent, or at least retard, for years. They browbeat Replay into
eliminating Internet program sharing and have forced the consumer
electronics industry to accept DRM schemes like encryption for DVDs and
HDCP for HDMI. There's no way they'd sit still if TiVo made it easy for
technically unsophisticated consumers to distribute bit-perfect copies
of recorded programs to anybody with a DVD player.

That's rather silly.

Any PC with an HD tuner can enable "mass pervassive piracy" for
any content that's been shown over an OTA channel. The output from
an ATSC/QAM card is ready made for this sort of thing.

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"JEDIDIAH" wrote in message
...
On 2008-02-06, Neill Massello wrote:
Ted Zlatanov wrote:

That's not theft, though it does possibly infringe copyrights.

Correct, but not really relevant to Bill's main point that what Art does
-- "sharing" programming without even moving it out of the digital
domain -- is precisely what content providers have been trying to
prevent, or at least retard, for years. They browbeat Replay into
eliminating Internet program sharing and have forced the consumer
electronics industry to accept DRM schemes like encryption for DVDs and
HDCP for HDMI. There's no way they'd sit still if TiVo made it easy for
technically unsophisticated consumers to distribute bit-perfect copies
of recorded programs to anybody with a DVD player.

That's rather silly.

Any PC with an HD tuner can enable "mass pervassive piracy" for
any content that's been shown over an OTA channel. The output from
an ATSC/QAM card is ready made for this sort of thing.

I doubt they care very much about what's available via OTA. It's more
likely the ability to make a direct digital transfer of HD content from HBO
and the like.

Humax still sells their DRT400 and DRT800 models but they're definitely
Series 2 standard definition boxes, however. I bought the 40 hr model a
couple of years ago and immediately upgraded the drive. I occasionaly burn
movies from HBO or other channels that air shows sans commercials. Once in
a great while there'll be a documentary on Discovery that I want to
archive commercial free -- in that case I'll download it to my Mac so I
can edit out the commercials prior to authoring a disc. The occasion is
pretty rare, though, since it's a lot more time investment than just
burning straight from the Humax.

I don't expect to see a unit with a built-in Blu-ray burner until the
price of media and burners comes down significantly. The price of the
newer Series 3 is a step in the right direction, though. Does anyone know
what size hard drive ships stock in these units? The specs say they record
up to 20 hrs. HD and 180 hrs. SD so I'm guessing only a 150-200 GB drive?

-Gary

JEDIDIAH wrote:

That's rather silly.

Any PC with an HD tuner can enable "mass pervassive piracy" for
any content that's been shown over an OTA channel. The output from
an ATSC/QAM card is ready made for this sort of thing.

And such a device is being marketed by TiVo or some other consumer
electronics company? If so, please provide a link.

I'm quite aware that it's possible to do what Art is doing, just as it's
possible to "share" TV shows via Usenet and P2P and to duplicate CDs and
DVDs. I'm not aware of anybody marketing an optical disc duplicator to
consumers, but I am aware that Replay was bullied into removing a
similar capability from their products more than four years ago, even
though they had far fewer customers than TiVo. If the IP lobby objected
to what Replay was providing for their tiny number of customers, they'd
surely go after a company that did something similar for the much larger
universe of DVD.

It may be silly, but that's the way the IP lobby seems to work. They
don't go after Hauppage, but they would go after TiVo or any other
well-known company that tried to make it easy to do in the living room
what can already be done with a computer.

In article , "Seth" wrote:
"JEDIDIAH" wrote in message
...
On 2008-02-06, Neill Massello wrote:
Ted Zlatanov wrote:

That's not theft, though it does possibly infringe copyrights.

Correct, but not really relevant to Bill's main point that what Art does
-- "sharing" programming without even moving it out of the digital
domain -- is precisely what content providers have been trying to
prevent, or at least retard, for years. They browbeat Replay into
eliminating Internet program sharing and have forced the consumer
electronics industry to accept DRM schemes like encryption for DVDs and
HDCP for HDMI. There's no way they'd sit still if TiVo made it easy for
technically unsophisticated consumers to distribute bit-perfect copies
of recorded programs to anybody with a DVD player.

That's rather silly.

Any PC with an HD tuner can enable "mass pervassive piracy" for
any content that's been shown over an OTA channel. The output from
an ATSC/QAM card is ready made for this sort of thing.

I doubt they care very much about what's available via OTA. It's more
likely the ability to make a direct digital transfer of HD content from HBO
and the like.


Why would anybody want to anymore. Pretty much everything comes out on a nice
little DVD set 1-3 months later and when you weigh in the cost of blanks, your
time, and hassles of burning the shows, plus the fact that the shows have
screen bugs that take up half the image at times advertising shows coming up
next . why bother.

On 2008-02-07, Neill Massello wrote:
JEDIDIAH wrote:

That's rather silly.

Any PC with an HD tuner can enable "mass pervassive piracy" for
any content that's been shown over an OTA channel. The output from
an ATSC/QAM card is ready made for this sort of thing.

And such a device is being marketed by TiVo or some other consumer
electronics company? If so, please provide a link.

Are you kidding?

Go to bestbuy.com, frys.com or newegg.com and do a search on QAM.

[deletia]

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Spongebob Squarepants cartoon.


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JEDIDIAH wrote:

Go to bestbuy.com, frys.com or newegg.com and do a search on QAM.

Best Buy and Fry's: no matches found.

Newegg: 182 hits, mostly TV sets, wireless gear, and Hauppage cards, but
nothing that fits the description of a DVR with digital tuner and DVD
recorder.

Of course you can put a digital tuner card in a computer, as I
acknowledged in the portion of my post that you deleted. But that's not
the kind of user-friendly set-top device that the OP was referring to,
nor is downloading a file from a TiVo to a computer and then burning to
DVD. Yes, you can go from DVR to DVD while staying digital, but it
requires a computer and isn't particularly easy for technically
unsophisticated consumers.

I doubt they care very much about what's available via OTA. It's more
likely the ability to make a direct digital transfer of HD content from HBO
and the like.


Why would anybody want to anymore. Pretty much everything comes out on a nice
little DVD set 1-3 months later and when you weigh in the cost of blanks, your
time, and hassles of burning the shows, plus the fact that the shows have
screen bugs that take up half the image at times advertising shows coming up
next . why bother.

Commercial DVDs tend to have unskippable material such as the FBI
warning. That makes viewing the pirated version preferable, even if
you bought and paid for the commercial DVDs.

In article , (Gordon Burditt) wrote:
I doubt they care very much about what's available via OTA. It's more
likely the ability to make a direct digital transfer of HD content from HBO
and the like.


Why would anybody want to anymore. Pretty much everything comes out on a nice
little DVD set 1-3 months later and when you weigh in the cost of blanks, your

time, and hassles of burning the shows, plus the fact that the shows have
screen bugs that take up half the image at times advertising shows coming up
next . why bother.

Commercial DVDs tend to have unskippable material such as the FBI
warning. That makes viewing the pirated version preferable, even if
you bought and paid for the commercial DVDs.

Ill take the 2 minutes of commercials over the non stop overlaying of ad bugs
over the show and the persistent HBO bug on homerecorded crap. I do copy on
occasion crap like that Commanche Moon show for my wife, but if its something
i really like for myself, ill buy the set at the end of the season. I have a
Directv Tivo unit with a self upgraded 750GB hard drive installed so very
rarely do i record stuff to DVD anymore unless for others. having around 700
hours of TV recorded is more than enough.

Neill Massello wrote:
JEDIDIAH wrote:

Go to bestbuy.com, frys.com or newegg.com and do a search on QAM.

Best Buy and Fry's: no matches found.

Newegg: 182 hits, mostly TV sets, wireless gear, and Hauppage cards,
but nothing that fits the description of a DVR with digital tuner and
DVD recorder.


Try a toshiba RDSX35 at
http://www.tacp.toshiba.com/dvr/prod...?model=rd-xs35
(click on the where to buy icon)

or even at walmart
Magnavox 80GB DVD Recorder w/ Digital Tuner ($198.84)

http://www.walmart.com/catalog/produ...uct_id=8054241